>>> ”Well, if the Huns ever do invade the mansion, make sure you give me a call because that’s one I think I’d actually like to see,” Lee said to Shin before turning to Tarin.

Shin said 💯.

>>> ”He was quoting a song from a kids movie,” Lee said and Shin felt kind of dated. Like a well-respected fossil put on exhibit. Like Sue, the t-rex from the field museum.

…They changed subjects real fast.

—

And then he was talking about the super cells, and Kevin was talking about the camps and OG Tarin. His dad. Who was not with us any more, cross your heart.

Shin looked at Lee. He had heard the tone. She spoke to her son, looking at him. They shared a look of understanding, and a flicker of the memory passed between them. It had been an intense situation. A very intense time.

Yes, he had been there. With Kevin’s dad.

”Mhm.”

She turned to face him fully. She explained in full.

>>> ”Kevin’s teacher decided to assign an end of school project about WWII concentration camps. So I told him some other relevant information that the teacher was probably not going to share.”

”Probably true.” He agreed. ”And worth knowing.”

There was an intensity there not usually present on the Asian’s face.

From the other part of the room, a voice asked
“And you got out.”

Shin turned to face him.

>>> ”It sounds like I came over at the right time though…it sounds like it hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows over here either…” Tarin said with a quick glance in Lee’s direction. Before Shin could reply to the initial question.

He nodded. And leaned against a wall. ”Yeah. If you ever want to hear the story, I can share. Suffice it to say, afterwards, they did not much care for me. The Romanian camps were worse though. And yeah. Your mom and dad were damn heroic.” He looked to Kevin then, and though he usually did not swear, a bit of the memory of Tarin slipped into his words. It just sounded like something Kevin’s dad would have said. ”Not sure I would have gotten out without them.” He tugged at the imaginary collar around his neck.

Based on everything that Tarin had told her about the reputation that SUPER had on the other side, the fact that people would be taken and never seen again, it was not a surprise that he sounded impressed by the fact that Shin had managed to escape.

And Shin was offering to tell Tarin the story about how he had gotten out. At some point. That was good, Lee thought. That was not the kind of story that Lee was very eager for Kevin to hear.

And then Shin went on to say that both she and Kevin’s father had been heroic there.

Lee shook her head. ”No,” Lee replied as she looked at Shin, still shaking her head, before she turned to look at her son. ”I really didn’t do a whole lot there.” Which was true, she really hadn’t done much during that break out other than finding Slate in the cell and dying.

”Your father, though…Your father saved a lot of people that day.” First and foremost, her.

Maybe it was just a thing with people over here. Tarin thought as Shin offered to tell Tarin about the time he’d spent with SUPER on the other side of the rift. They’d barely met and this guy was offering to share the details of something that had to have been highly traumatic at the time.

…but apparently not as bad as the camps that he’d been in with the other Tarin. And Lee.

The two of them had apparently been damn heroic.

Lee, of course, immediately tried to downplay her own part in the whole thing. The woman had literally died and she was still trying to deflect any sort of positive attention from herself.

”Oh come on.” Tarin said, rolling his eyes as she said she hadn’t done a whole lot. There wasn’t much else he could say in front of Kevin, and honestly he was a bit shocked with himself that he’d said that much.

Lee spoke again tough and Tarin found himself frowning a bit. There had been more in th folder the other night, but by the time they’d finished talking about the strange shared dream of the future and all of the things that had gone with it he’d set the rest of Lee’s stories aside.

They hadn’t talked about what exactly had happened in Romania, what Tarin had been told had been enough for him to understand that he didn’t want to hear more.

Maybe there was a lot more to the story though.

Tarin hoped that Shin had enough tact to not say too much in front of Kevin.

Him and Tarin agreed about something. Lee tried to deflect, tried to say her part was less than it had been.

>>>
”Oh come on.” Tarin said

Without saying a word, Shin held out a hand, palm up, with a gesture towards him, like “What Tarin said.” There was some disbelief on his face.

They would not go into the subject in-depth in front of Kevin. It had been something a bit more than a topic for a simple tour. But, COME ON, Lee. She was right, Kevin’s father HAD saved a lot of people that day, but COME ON! She had to put more on her actions than simply “I was there, I did not do a lot…”

”Yeah. I think we all agree you’re downplaying yourself quite a bit,” Shin said. ”A lot of people did important stuff that day, and you were one of them. But anyways, we are doing a tour here.” He looked to Kevin.

”What part of the mansion do you want to see the most, Kevin? We’ve seen the classrooms. There’s bedrooms upstairs, stuff outside, basketball court, hedge maze maybe? All sorts of stuff.”

Neither Tarin nor Shin seemed ready to let her claim that she hadn’t done a lot during the Romanian camp breakout. Tarin had only heard what she had told him about it, which really wasn’t much beyond the fact that she had died. And Shin…Lee hadn’t seen him there until after she had come back and it didn’t hurt to be alive anymore.

Not exactly heroic by any means.

And Lee really wanted to argue with them about it, because simply dying was not heroic.

But with Kevin there, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t let him know how bad things like that had been. Not yet, he was still far too young.

Thankfully, Shin was trying to redirect the conversation back to the tour, asking Kevin what he wanted to see the most, and honestly, of the things Shin listed, Lee didn’t think any of them would stand out as particularly interesting to her son.

”Maybe the bedrooms?” Lee suggested as she turned to look at Kevin as well. ”It might be good to have an idea of where you’ll be sleeping here.”

But Kevin could not be distracted. At least not completely.

”That means you’ve seen my mum fight?” Kevin asked Shin, ignoring her suggestion. ”She said that she would teach me how to fight like her! Is there a gym here for that stuff?”

Shin was definitely alright, Tarin decided as the other man emphasized his point to Lee. Tarin could see on Lee’s face though, that she wanted to argue. Two on one with someone who had actually been there, and Lee was still determined to undersell herself. She didn’t argue though, and Tarin figured it was because Kevin was here and she didn’t want to get into the details necessary to argue her point.

That was fine. It was becoming something of a mission for him to make Lee understand the impact she’d had though. Shin was directing the conversation away from that topic though, and again Tarin had to appreciate the other man’s intuition. If for no other reason than the fact that Lee was very careful with what she shared with her son. If people knew her here though, if others had been around that had known Lee and Kevin’s Dad…Tarin didn’t say anything but chances were Kevin was going to find things out sooner rather than later.

They were continuing the tour though and Tarin had to smile as Kevin demonstrated a streak of single-mindedness that Tarin may have seen before. Now that he had the proverbial bit between his teeth concerning Lee’s martial capabilities, he wasn’t going to let it go.

Kevin also wasn’t remotely interested in seeing where he was going to be staying if he came to the Mansion, he wanted to see more training facilities. Clearly, Kevin’s idea of “school” at The Mansion was different than the reality the boy was going to find himself in if he did end up there.

Moving right along.

Lee suggested the bedrooms. Kevin was far more interested in talking about his mom fighting. Oh boy.

Shin got the feeling Lee did not want to talk about that. And he wanted to fight like her? And see a gym to train to fight and stuff.

They did have something like that, but he was not showing it to Kevin. Probably best if Kevin were not even aware. Students needed special permission for that place, but that did not stop folks from stumbling upon it.

”Uh huh… I have seen her fight…” Shin said slowly. ”And teachers can help with powers, but a special gym?”

He sucked in a breath, like he wasn’t sure, and was mulling it over.

With a name like DANGER ROOM, he was not about to broadcast its existence. Lee surely knew about it, but Kevin? He did not need to know. Not today. Did he even have a power?

He had not lied by being evasive. He changed the subject. ”We do have a nice gym. And a weight room. I think we may be considering a tennis court, but you may not be ready for that…”

Lee smiled at Shin as he managed to avoid answering Kevin’s question completely by not bringing up the Danger Room. Lee knew that it was only a matter of time before Kevin ended up in there with Sam. But there was no need to bring it up within the first hour of Kevin being here, before he was even enrolled.

”I’m sure they have something that will work, Kev,” Lee said to her son.

Then she turned to look at Shin again, lightly scratching at the mostly faded bruise on her jaw. ”My recent sparring match was apparently recorded, which Kevin was very excited to inform us about when he found out,” Lee explained.

”It is SO good! Did you want to see it?” Kevin asked Shin, already digging his phone out of his pocket.

Lee rolled her eyes slightly. She had been sure that Kevin’s eagerness to show off her fighting would have dissipated by now. Apparently not. ”It’s finally clicked in for Kevin that maybe his mother does know what she’s talking about with what she’s been trying to teach him at the gym for the last six years.”

”Sparring match is a clever euphemism for prize fight.” Tarin couldn’t keep himself from commenting to Shin as Lee brought up the reasons why Kevin was so interested in fighting at the moment.

Kevin, in fact, still had the fight ready to pull up on his phone at a moment's notice.

Lee described Kevin’s newfound respect for her and her teaching in the gym and Tarin had to interject once more, ”Anyone who saw that video and doesn’t respect what you can do in the gym deserves to find out first hand.”

Like Robert had.

Tarin was grinning now.

He did have a question though, and he hoped Lee didn’t mind him asking.

”The kids that stay here…can they leave any time they want?” he’d kind of butchered the wording, and of course he didn’t think that kids should just be allowed to wander unsupervised around New York City…

”Well, not anytime…but you know what I mean…”

It seemed Lee appreciated him not mentioning the danger room. Shin had read that right. She assuaged his concerns, they would have something that would work.

Shin nodded yep.

Then she turned towards him. And talked about her recent sparring match. Which had been recorded, and, what, posted online? Or had he misheard that one?

>>> ”Sparring match is a clever euphemism for prize fight.” Tarin chimed in.

”Prize fight?” Shin arched an eyebrow, and crossed his arms.

>>> ”It is SO good! Did you want to see it?” Kevin said eagerly, pawing at a pocket for his phone.

Lee was rolling her eyes. Not really dying to show off.

>>> ”It’s finally clicked in for Kevin that maybe his mother does know what she’s talking about with what she’s been trying to teach him at the gym for the last six years.” She noted.

He threw on a shocked look. Shocked. All while trying to avoid actually looking at the phone the kid was trying to thrust into his face.

>>> ”Anyone who saw that video and doesn’t respect what you can do in the gym deserves to find out first hand.” Tarin added.

”I don’t even have to see the video to agree with that,” Shin said, gently turning Kevin down with a ‘that’s okay, no thank you, maybe some other time.’

He did not need to see it. He had seen enough fights.

Tarin had a question, a happy escape from the video conversation.

>>> ”The kids that stay here…can they leave any time they want?” He asked.

Shin opened his mouth to comment on curfews, and stuff like that. But Tarin self-edited to clarify. Shin closed his mouth, and thought on his answer.

”Well, this is kind of a boarding school, but people aren’t under lock and key. We try and keep students safe the best that we can. We have good security. Kids still go out sometimes during the day, for free time. Security screens people coming in, usually. We generally don’t want kids out and about in the big city, though.”

What they wanted wasn’t always what they got. Visions of Koga and Kokoro, of all the other younger students on walkabouts, of kids getting into difficult situations and needing to be rescued, of literally a few months prior, when they had to huddle in the basement of the mansion to avoid a cataclysmic event from a wizard being warped by wild magic… all of that happy stuff… danced through his head. And he felt slightly guilty with their track record. Hell, he had taken a kid for ramen and wound up teaming up with him to fight an all you can eat noodles and pork bun onslaught. And that had been under his watch.

”People have lives,” He offered weakly. ”Mutant kids tend to grow up fast. It’s a big world.”

He hoped that didn’t bother her, or Tarin. This was not a prison. But maybe it should have been more of one? He didn’t know.

>”I don’t even have to see the video to agree with that,”

Lee’s head tilted slightly as she looked at Shin. ’When had he seen me fight? Lee wondered. Because she didn’t remember seeing him in the camps here, knew he hadn’t seen anything in Columbia…She hadn’t done any actual fighting during that fight after the dream…Just lots of blood. And she didn’t remember even seeing Shin in Romania until…after.

Had he really never seen her fight?

If it had been anyone other than Shin saying they agreed with Tarin about this having never actually seen her fight or train, Lee would not have believed it.

But then Tarin was actually speaking, asking Shin a question. Which Lee feared she knew the answer to all too well: the kids ended up going out into the city far more often than they probably should be.

And Shin answered probably about as well as Shin could while giving a tour with a parent in tow. Because honestly, Lee wasn’t sure Shin was capable of lying. Omitting, maybe. Going off on so many tangents and jumping around in stories so much you really weren’t sure what he was saying, yes. But not lying.

”Well, I guess you were right that he can come home regularly, Tarin,” Lee said.

Shin didn’t want to see the video, no matter how badly Kevin wanted him to see it.

Tarin had to respect that…even if the video was incredibly cool.

Shin also managed to follow along with the question Tarin had asked and the answer was about as much as person could hope for considering what was inherently involved in a boarding school and the fact that it was full of kids.

It wasn’t a perfect answer, but a perfect answer would have been wildly suspicious. These were kids, after all, and kids were supposed to go on adventures. They were supposed to sneak out and get into mischief and the kind of trouble that all kids got into.

Kids were supposed to have somewhere safe to come home to, and adults who cared about them and wanted them to be comfortable and happy.

Tarin just nodded when Lee spoke, looking over to give her a slight smile, ”I guess I was.” he said.

>>>
”Well, I guess you were right that he can come home regularly, Tarin,” Lee said.

Shin thought it was wonderful the kid had a home to come back to, honestly. A lot of mansion people did not.

Tarin replied to her, ”I guess I was.” he said.

”Of course,” Shin stated. ”We are happy to see it. We are here to help the parents, as much as we are the students. And it would be terrible of us to keep them from each other.”

Now, if the parents were violent abusive people, that was a different subject. But they were not talking about anything like that. He had not ended that statement with a “as long as they want to see them” for that reason, as much as because it did not seem to him very grammatically correct. But what did he know, he was a Japanese teacher, not an English teacher. And Lee was good peoples.

Not that Lee had been worried about never seeing her son again once he started here. Lee knew that wasn’t the case, especially with how often over the years people had tried to get her to come around more often.

But it was good to have the confirmation that Kevin, as a student, would be permitted to still come home regularly. That was the part that had worried Lee. Since they’d moved back to New York, it had been so rare for Kevin to have been away from home for more than a single night, and most of those times had been spending the weekend with his father.

”So Kevin, was there anything else that you wanted to take a look at today?”

”I’d still like to see the gym and weight room,” Kevin pointed out, and Lee couldn’t help but wonder if this single mindedness was what people were talking about when they called her stubborn.

”Actually, Shin, that’s one thing around here I haven’t seen either,” Lee commented. And it was true; she’d been in the Danger Room, but hadn’t seen any of the mansion's less…technologically advanced training areas.

They were in an absolutely state of the art school specifically catered to the needs and wants of mutants and the thing that Kevin wanted to see more than anything was the gym.

Oh to be 13 again.

It did make Tarin the slightest bit nostalgic?. When he’d been 13 he had already been thinking about skipping town, but hadn’t made up his mind to do it yet. It had seemed like a big thing to do, and when he’d finally left a year later he’d realized he’d no idea. Nostalgia turned to something darker.

It had honestly been a miracle that he had made it to New York at all, and then he’d realized that nobody would hire someone his age for any kind of decent work.

It was good that things were different for Kevin, for all these kids. Life still wasn’t easy for them, but it was getting better.